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Luke 18.18-29

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Luke chapter 18, and we begin reading at verse 18.

A certain ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Why do you call me good? Jesus answered, no one is good except God alone.
You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.

All these I have kept since I was a boy, he said.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, you still lack one thing, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

When he heard this, he became very sad because he was a man of great wealth.
Jesus looked at him and said, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Those who heard this asked, who then can be saved?
Jesus replied, what is impossible with men is possible with God.
Peter said to him, we have left all we had to follow you.
I tell you the truth, Jesus said to them, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come, eternal life, amen.
You have heard from me already twice today.
I worked overtime this morning, didn't work quite so long, perhaps still as hard this afternoon, so I wanted to give you a rash undertaking.
For those of you who have been hoping against hope that one day the sermon will be closer to 20 minutes than to 40 minutes, mark this down in your books.
This is probably the closest that you will get tonight.
Now that's the first bit of news.
The second bit of news.
Sometimes in wedding, no, mostly in wedding services, people expect the minister in his address to direct his attention primarily to the bride and the bridegroom and they would be rather disappointed
if it was to ignore them and to speak to the rest of the congregation.
So tonight, I'm going to deliberately address my remarks to our sister Cheryl as a new member of this church.
But if you promise to behave yourselves, you may stay.
But if you interrupt us, I may have to ask you to leave because I would like to speak for a few moments to Cheryl.
And what I want to speak about tonight is what this text at least points toward.
I do not want to expound this particular text from Luke chapter 18, but I want to speak about what it points toward.
And I'm referring to verses 29 and 30 from Luke chapter 18.
I tell you the truth, Jesus said to them, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come, eternal life.
What a tremendous promise.
I want you to think back, Cheryl, to when the disciples were first called. And to think back to the time when Jesus simply said to them, follow me.
And I want to bring to your attention that they did not say, what's in it?
What are you offering?
In fact, on another encounter that Jesus had, particularly with Peter, you may recall after he had been fishing all night, when Jesus sent him out to fish again and showed himself to be who he truly was,
how Peter fell to his knees and said, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.
He requested nothing.
He didn't bargain.
He wondered, as so many inquirers do as they come to see the faint light of the gospel at first,
whether it could possibly be true that they could be saved, whether it could possibly be true.
And here now, Jesus tells Peter in reply to the statement that he makes, that not only is it possible for him to be saved, but there are all sorts of things thrown in for free as a bonus.
And so I want to share with you a little of this tonight concerning your church membership.
We didn't say to you, Cheryl, if you become a member of the church, we've got all these goodies for you, all these things that the Lord has promised and neither should we.
Another instance that demonstrates on how God works was that encounter that we looked at a little while ago with Jesus and the thief on the cross.
There he was, justly punished for his crimes.
Unlike Jesus, who was hanging there unjustly, the other two criminals deserved what they were receiving.
He didn't try to strike a bargain with Jesus.
He simply said, Lord, remember me, remember me.
And you know what Jesus did?
He forgave him his sins and he promised him paradise.
He accepted him fully and threw in paradise
and eternity with God.
The thief expected nothing and he was given everything.
And so it is when we come to God and we become aware
of who we really are in his sight,
if God is really doing a work in our life
and if he has really done a work in your life,
then what you would have been most conscious of
was your own unworthiness.
No right to receive anything.
And yet God has not only given you his salvation
through Christ, but he has thrown in so many other things
and I believe that this text which speaks about receiving
many times as much as what has been forsaken in this age
has a special relevance to what we began to speak about
this morning in the context of the church
which God is building here on earth
through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And through the local churches.
Let's reflect and I don't have in place these things
in any special order, but simply want to mention
and reflect on some of these things that God gives us.
And of course, because we're sometimes slow to take up
all that God provides, you may not have yet observed
these things in their fullness.
And I would say that probably you will not experience
all of these things in their fullness,
but you will catch a glimpse of these things
if you truly enter into the spirit of what it means to be
a member of a local church with God's people.
First of all, God has given you freely
a whole new family, a whole new family.
They have adopted you with open arms
and they have accepted you because God has accepted you.
And they will welcome you into a relationship
which will go deeper than any family relationship
you have known.
If they are truly God's people as they profess to be,
then you will be one of them for better or for worse.
They have committed themselves to you.
In saying, Cheryl, you may join us here in the local church.
They have said, we accept this commitment under God.
And if we want to know something of what this means,
the way that our Lord portrayed it, let's reflect
how when Jesus was teaching a group of people,
someone came to him and said, your family is waiting outside
your mother and your brothers need to speak to you.
Did he jump up and rush out and say, everybody wait,
my family is there, they come first.
Oh no, he said, who really is my family?
Who really is my family?
And he reminded the people that his true family
were those who would obey his word.
They were his brothers and sisters.
And some of us, sad to say, have begun to take this
almost a little bit for granted.
But if we just stop to think, I am sure that all of us
who aren't part of God's church will testify
that we can relate better to our fellow Christians
than any of our family members who do not know Christ.
Now, of course, sometimes we have a double bonus.
If our natural family is also part of God's family,
what a tremendous blessing, what a great blessing.
You will not think it's strange after a while
if you haven't experienced it already,
that you will feel more closely drawn and more committed
to those who are of the household of God
than to those that you have grown up with
or to those that are related to you in some way or other.
And God gives this to us freely.
He allows us to enter into a relationship
that does not end in this life,
but it goes on for eternity.
And the people that you will grow to love
and who love you and who commit themselves to you
will be with you for eternity.
What a tremendous thing.
And we must not take that for granted.
God has given us a great blessing in that.
Let's never treat that cheaply.
And so with this new gift of a family,
God had by that family relationship
can be cultivated and restored.
Now there is something about this family of God
that is unlike any family in the natural realm.
You know, we grow up with our family,
and if they're not Christian,
no matter how wonderful they are,
they do not have the capacity
that God's people have to really forgive.
In God's family, you will find people
who are supernaturally by the Spirit of God,
not of themselves, but by God's Spirit
have been given the capacity
that no matter how much you wrong them,
they will be prepared to forgive you.
As soon as you acknowledge your sin,
they will want to forgive you
because they know God's forgiveness.
And they will not place a limit on their forgiveness.
You can come to them seven times, 70 times,
just in one day, and start again the next day.
But that's not because of anything that they have done,
but because of what God has done in them.
And because they know when they forgive you,
they haven't even begun to give what God has forgiven them.
It's as if they're dealing
with a little sowing symbol full of water
compared to the ocean of God's forgiveness.
And if we ever, as your fellow family members
and God's family, act as if we've forgotten that,
please pray for us, because we are grieving God.
And if we act towards you,
as if we're not prepared to do that, pray for us,
because we are not even allowed to pray ourselves.
Because when we pray, the Lord says,
pray, forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them the trespass against us.
And if we hold our resentment and we do not forgive you,
pray for us, because we're in a terrible state.
We have renounced what we believe,
because fundamentally to being part of that family,
God has called us to restore that fellowship
and to forgive openly.
And even more, when the world says I forgive,
what they generally say by that is I'll take it off
the top of my pile and I'll shuffle it down a bit,
but I'll mark the place carefully
in case I have to bring it up against you again sometime.
But when God's people forgive in God's way,
they enter into a covenant, a contract with you,
and do you know what they're saying?
They're saying that they're forgiving in God's way,
that with God's help, I promise never to bring it up again
to you, to others, or even to myself.
That's their intention, that's their commitment
when they forgive in God's way.
What a family.
And God not only gives you such a family
as you enter into the fellowship of God's church
in a full and deep way, but God even enlarges
beyond any expectation your circle of friends.
Because you see, you have, as it were, the local church,
which is a close family, but then you have out there
multitudes of people whom the Lord has brought
to himself just like you.
And you can go wherever you're placed in the future,
and you can go to a gathering of those
who are truly God's people, and they will commit themselves
to you as your very best friends,
because you belong to them, and they belong to you.
Because God not only has this family,
he has families everywhere, and they belong
to that great large family of God throughout the world.
And no matter where you go in the world,
I've had the privilege of experiencing it firsthand,
and some of us have experienced it more than once.
It doesn't matter where you go in the world.
Those whom the Lord has made members of his family,
you can experience that oneness and that kinship
the first time you meet them.
That doesn't take any long period of time.
You can walk in and you can feel at home.
And what a tremendous privilege to know
that you have such a family.
And that family also undertakes to provide
a new measure of security.
Now we're not talking here about the eternal security
that God gives us.
By his guarantees, we're talking about the here and now.
You see, when we commit ourselves,
when we have committed ourselves to the Lord,
we have said that all the resources
that God has put at our disposal is available
for the needs of any of the family members.
And so God has provided for you
that should you be in need spiritually, materially,
in whatever way, you can feel free to call
on the members of your family and expect
that they will bear you up with all the resources
that God has given them.
And God has placed you in that family
and he has made available all the knowledge
that they have gathered.
Now what a tremendous thing.
Now just imagine if we said to you, Cheryl,
look, do you wanna be a Christian?
Well, here's our book.
Just start reading it, come back and see us again
when you've memorized it because that'll tell you
everything you need to know about how to live for God.
We wouldn't see you for a long time, I'm sure of that.
If ever again, because it's impossible.
But you see, what God has done,
in the family in which he's placed you,
he has put people who have had many years
of reading God's word and he has put people
who have specifically experienced parts of God's word
in their lives in ways that can be of real help to you.
There are people in this family who know where to turn to
when you are troubled.
There are people in this family who can show you
where to get information on how to make
an important decision.
There are people in this family who can point you
to God's word concerning where you might find assurance
of who you are and what your inheritance is in God.
And God has made that available to you freely.
It's at your disposal.
You have become one of the people
for whom God has provided this.
And in this family, furthermore,
God has provided you with protection.
You see, God is concerned for your welfare,
especially your spiritual welfare.
And he has placed brothers and sisters around you
who will, along with you, watch that no harm befalls you.
And he has appointed for you a spiritual shepherd
who has to give an account before God.
Who will be watching, waiting to the best
of his God-given ability to provide you
with encouragement and counsel?
Of course, Cheryl, if you withdraw yourself,
you will make his job and the job of your brothers
and sisters very, very hard.
You too need to accept this family relationship
and be prepared to wholeheartedly enter into it.
And if you do, you will discover that the members
of your family are not out to use you,
but to help you to further your growth,
because that's their commitment before God.
Oh, what a tremendous bonus.
Now, you see, I did give an undertaking
that I wouldn't speak too long,
and I don't want to tell you everything I know in one night.
But already, you ought to begin to be thankful
for the things that God has given you.
Let me just quickly mention a couple of other things.
In this new family, you are fully accepted.
You are fully accepted because God has fully accepted you.
You do not have to prove yourself to us.
You do not have to act apart that we might like you,
because we love you.
We love you because Christ is in you,
because he has made you beautiful.
And he has made you acceptable.
Don't ever feel that you have to put on a mask
to be with your family members.
You can be yourself.
And if we discover that there are things
that are gonna be harmful to you,
it's better you don't hide them,
because we want to gently tell you
how you might deal with them in God's way.
But not in order that you might be accepted by us.
No, we're accepting you,
but in order that you might grow and develop
to be the very best person God wants you to be.
That's the kind of bonus that God has given you
by bringing you into his family.
And I've spoken to a large extent, primarily,
about those things which are even external.
We haven't begun to touch on those things,
which as God's child, you have already begun to experience.
The freedom from the slavery of sin,
the freedom from the fear of God's judgment,
the freedom from the fear of death.
Those things do not need to trouble you anymore,
because you are God's child in front of God's family.
You have peace with God and peace with yourself.
And if it is temporally undermined, it is a surface thing,
because God has undertaken to bring to completion
that which he began.
And he said that no one shall pluck you
out of the hand of his son.
You have assurance, you have peace,
you have hope for now and for all eternity.
You are now walking in the light
and not in the darkness of ignorance.
You know what is true, because you know God's word is true.
And you know that you can trust him.
You have been given a happiness,
which is not dependent on circumstances,
but a happiness, which in spite of what happens around you,
turns its eyes toward God and says,
God works all things for those who love him.
And we have said to you, Cheryl, as your family members,
we believe that you are a lover of God.
We spoke about that last Sunday night.
And by identifying ourselves with you
and saying we can accept you as a fellow Christian,
we have said as best as God has made known to us,
we believe that you're a lover of God
and you can claim that promise.
And nothing will ever separate you from that love of God.
You have an inexhaustible source of strength.
God says you are planted like a tree
near a stream of living water, inexhaustible.
And when the seasons change outside
and it becomes dry in the atmosphere,
your roots are plugged in to an inexhaustible supply
and your fruit bearing can go on
no matter what the weather is like outside.
What a tremendous promise.
And not only that, not only has God plugged you in
as the roots of a tree to a stream of water,
but through the Holy Spirit,
he has put in you a spring of living water
so that it will not only be sufficient to nourish you,
but it will flow out through you to others as well.
What a tremendous promise.
Just a couple more thoughts.
And this is important.
You see, with all this wonderful things
about the family members,
you will discover that we are human.
And all these things that we ought
to be committing ourselves to, occasionally we will fail.
Occasionally we will fail, perhaps too often.
But there is one who is undertaken never to fail.
And what's more, even not to fail when you fail.
There is one who is undertaken to be true to you
even if he were to turn you back and wander away,
he will bring you back in love.
He has committed himself to you in that way.
And he has given us an example
that we might commit ourselves to each other
in the same way.
Well, you will have noticed that my time is gone, perhaps.
Perhaps.
And I haven't even begun to speak about the future glory
that this text speaks about.
We'll talk about that another time.
But you see, these are the things that he's given you
for here and now through his church here.
These are the things that God has blessed us with.
And there would be people who would pay a high price
if only they could attain it, if only they could buy it.
There are people who joined secret societies
with the hope that these kind of things
in a small measure might be theirs.
And God has just tossed it in, you see.
You've come to God helpless, a sinner,
knowing that unless he extends his mercy,
you would go into an eternal punishment.
God has cleansed you, made you new,
brought you to himself.
And then he says, now I've got a surprise for you.
There are all these things as well.
What a tremendous God.
What a tremendous savior.
Well, I recommend that tonight, before you go to bed, you might read for yourself again,
Romans chapter eight from verse 29 to the end of the chapter, and the promises that God makes, and the basis on which he makes them, not on anything that's dependent on us, but because of what he has done, even before the creation of the world and what he will do even through eternity.
I hope that that has given you some cause for thanking God for his goodness to you, and made you aware how he has given you many times as much as anything that you might have left behind.
Let us praise him for that.